One Pharmacist's Quest to Wellness (and Fewer Migraines)
In my blogs, I usually focus on information that I feel will improve and support our community. This blog, I'm going to do something a little different and share my personal story of prioritizing wellness and how it helped me manage my migraines.
Everyone experiences a headache from time to time. But around 38 million people suffer from migraines regularly. These differ from a headache because they are more severe, may cause nausea and vomiting, vision impairment, and light sensitivity. While women tend to experience migraines more than men, it can happen to anyone. Worst of all, migraines can develop when you're at work, with the kids, or with a patient – and there's not too much you can do about it.
Seriously, migraines tend to disrupt lives, and I was struggling to find a way to manage my symptoms and still keep up with my life. Trying to study with a migraine felt like a waste of time. Work often seemed impossible to get through when I was dealing with a migraine. And I found myself needing to retreat from my family life since I needed to lay down because my head was pounding.
A lot of the time, migraines can seem like they come out of nowhere. You can be having a fantastic day and suddenly feel that first pang of pain that you know means a migraine is on the way. I once saw an analogy that explained how migraines were like buckets. Many things can contribute to that bucket getting full. A small leak may not make the bucket overflow, but what about a leaky roof and a thunderstorm? For migraines, you may be prone to developing them already, but a bad night's sleep, stress, and hormones can all contribute to making that bucket "overflow." The result? One new migraine and a ton of things you had to sit out on because of the pain.
Once I thought about how my migraines were caused by a lot of factors combining, I knew I needed to make a change. Maybe I couldn't change that I'm prone to developing migraines, but I could change some of the things that make the migraines happen so that my "bucket" would overflow less frequently.
The Start of My Wellness Journey
Eventually, enough was enough. I was sick of dealing with the pain and frustration I felt from not being able to do what I wanted because of migraines. At the time, I wanted to make a few changes to my lifestyle and mindset. I wanted to be more proactive, feel better, and be able to do more during the day.
I knew that things like a lack of sleep and stress from work contributed to my migraines. Once I gave it some more thought, I realized how closely these things were tied into poor wellness habits.
Suddenly, my plan to start meditating seemed a lot more important since that would help me manage stress. Exercising and doing yoga became a priority because I wanted to help my muscles let go of tension. Eating better seemed more reasonable because the occurrence of migraines has been tied to alcohol, smoked fish, caffeine, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and more.
If you've been struggling with a chronic condition like migraines, I strongly encourage you to think about how your symptoms are related to other areas of your lifestyle. While medications can help, it's up to the patient to work on other factors that can improve their health. For me, working on my wellness as a whole in conjunction with finding the right medication is what helped me control my migraines.
How I Managed My Migraines Through Wellness
While everyone's journey is different and everyone's concept of wellness is unique, I want to share how I was able to manage my migraines.
I want to start this section off by saying that, if possible, you should work closely with your physician to make sure your migraines aren't being triggered to something dangerous, like a tumor or another condition. Once other possible causes of my migraines were ruled out, I started a journey toward wellness. Here's what I did:
I found the right medication: As I mentioned, working with a physician is key because there are many medications for migraines, many of which require prescriptions. It may take some trial-and-error, but something out there should be able to offer you some relief.
I learned about my triggers: Many things can contribute to migraines. So it's essential to learn about your triggers. For me, a lack of sleep, stress, and hormone fluctuations often triggered migraines. Once I learned this, I made it a priority to get better sleep and manage my stress so that I avoided things that could overflow my migraine "bucket" as much as possible.
I focused on my nutrition: Another essential part of my journey toward wellness was managing my diet. I started learning about foods that were linked to migraines and seeing if I was affected by them. More often than not, foods that were lightly processed and sweets can contribute to migraines, so that gave me even more of a reason to phase them out of my diet.
I managed my stress: This is easier said than done, I know. Managing my stress was one of the most challenging parts of my wellness journey. I care a lot about my work and the environment I live in. So, I often carried stress from work into my home. Sometimes, I brought stress from home into work too. I spent a lot of time working on being able to transform stress into positive energy to change things when and how I can.
I improved my schedule: If there's one thing I can recommend to anyone, it's to make sure that your schedule fits your biological rhythm whenever possible. Getting a bad night of sleep often triggers a migraine for me. So I changed my schedule to make sure that I got enough sleep every night – including some leeway for fussing kids! I also tweaked my schedule to allow me to exercise a few times a week so that I could maintain my strength and energy levels.
In the end, all of these changes took me further down the path to wellness while also helping manage my migraines. I hope that you can take some helpful tips from this blog so that you can experience more pain-free days and improve your wellness.